Contrary to what you might think, bartenders in Japan consistently take home top honors at global competitions, not because of their flashy antics or strange new concoctions but because there is an intense devotion to making simply the best drink, of which perfect ice is an obvious component.

Speaking of top-notch beverages, Asahi’s Nikka Whiskey label will be releasing again for a limited time its Non-chill Filtered 20 Year Single Malt Whisky that took home the award for best single malt whiskey at the annual World Whisky Awards.

Chilling during the filtering process is common practice to reduce the risk of the whiskey becoming cloudy, though at a sacrifice of taste. Nikka’s Non-chilled filtered goes for full taste, at the risk of having to sacrifice a few cloudy batches. Sales are limited to 1350 bottles and will sell for ¥20,000 (about $187), which considering the other premium beverages on the market, seems totally reasonable.

Combine the Non-chill Filtered Nikka Whiskey on the rocks and a Taisin ice sphere for a perfect whiskey on the rocks!

Source: Japan Trends

The concept that Ice Caters pioneered for major brand events is now available to order online for special events and corporate brand promotions.   An elegant round perfectly clear disc of ice with your brand or simple event image etched.  That’s brand building in every cocktail!

Ice Caters Ice Discs have been seen at promotion for Absolut Vodka and other high profile industry events.  Now you can order them online for your next high profile event.

It’s simple. We only sell Ice Balls and Speciality Cocktail Ice.

The Good Stuff.  Direct.

The original 2.25″  inch diamater premium ice ball or by special minimum orders, 2.5″ or 3″ sizes are available, as well as logo disks.   Individual cases are shipped via fedex priority or  plan ahead, order in bulk and save big when we ship by frozen freight directly to your loading dock and commercial freezer. (Order at least 10 days in advance, please).

It’s as simple as One Click.   All orders online.  Ice and Easy.  www.iceandeasy.com and www.icecaters.com

Our new big value Ice Ball bulk pack offers the lowest price for the round ice you want for the perfect cocktail on the rocks… or,  ahem, on the ice ball.

For wholesale pricing of 1.25 per ball, order 10 or more cases for delivery by frozen freight to your loading dock and commercial freezer (sorry, no residential deliveries for this product).

Each bulk case contains 400 frozen ice balls.  20 cases per pallet, or 10 cases for a half pallet.

The iMi Agency, a leading developer of food and beverage promotion programs for chain on-premise hotel and restaurant operators across the United States and Ice Caters, the pioneer developer of “Ice and Easy” shippable ice in a box products, announce a new alliance to combine their respective expertise to develop and offer new beverage promotion programs with a real ROI.

“Creativity no longer has to be limited by cost and logistics of using ice to attract attention and build brands on-premise,” said Ice Caters CEO and Founder, Michael Shoer. “We’re now able to deliver unmatched powerful brand impressions with logoed cocktail ice, branded bottle displays and luges, individual iceware servers and bottle chillers with beverage promotion support from the leaders in hospitality on-premise channel business building.”

Atlanta-based Ice Caters has taken the concept of ice to a whole new level… a perfectly round, perfectly clear sphere of ultra-premium drink ice that melts slowly so as not to dilute a fine spirit.  But it is also turning heads as the center of attention as the beverage industry looks to find that special ingredient that will propel their cool new brand.

Guess what? It turns out the ingredient is frozen water! But not just any water turned into ice. Ice Caters Ice Balls are manufactured using special technology that ensures perfection in shape, clarity and purity. This is not ordinary drink ice.

The Ice Caters’ Ice Ball has already been spotted at industry promotions for Brown-Forman’s Woodford Reserve, Bacardi USA’s Grey Goose, Pernod-Ricard USA’s Absolut, Patron Spirits “Ultimat” and Van Gogh’s Blue vodkas and is now a staple on the menu’s of some of the most celebrated cocktail menus.

At the 901 Silver ultra premium tequila brand event, in New York , Master Mixologist Junior Merino served crowd-pleasing cocktails including the 901 Tostanja , with 901 Silver Tequila, Rothman & Winter Orchard Apricot, Tangerine, Tea and Roasted Agave poured over and served with an Ice Caters® Ice Ball. Merino describes the ice ball, as a “huge hit, the center of attention in every glass.”

This 2.5” round ball of ice, has already proven that it can drive sales of drinks.

Across the country, at the posh Beverly Hills SLS Hotel, Beverage Director Lucas Paya, has made a splash with his now famous ‘ultimate gin & tonic’ served in the hotel’s ‘The Bazaar by Jose Andres’ using Ice Caters ice balls. “This is our most popular signature cocktail by far,” said Paya, “and everyone loves the ice ball.”

Ice Balls originally came to light in Japan, where today they are considered essential elements for any bar, and increasingly for all cold beverages. Packaged Ice is even bigger business here in the United States, and so far, Ice Caters stands alone in offering the pure clear sphere of cocktail ice as a practical addition to any high end cocktail presentation or promotion.

Ice Caters, which introduced the Ice Ball to the catering and hospitality market in the summer of 2007, is now utilizing new breakthrough manufacturing and packaging technology to make it logistically practical to experience the style and substance of Ice Balls, in an space age insulated case, at a price that will make it viable, valuable and essential. The company offers Ice Balls in its Ice and Easy line of packaged ice designs, that also include ice martini glasses, ice luges, and ice bottle chillers.

About Ice Caters:

Ice Caters® ships it’s frozen ice in a box products nationwide, primarily to commercial buyers and hospitality resellers through its web site, icecaters.com.

The company was founded in 1996 by Michael Shoer, a former Television News Executive, in the course of planning a special birthday party. Today, Ice Caters serves many of the nation’s top venues and brands with ice balls and speciality logo cocktail ice.

We’re partial to the ice ball, but it’s not just because some of the world’s best mixologists love them.

It’s because good ice really does make the drink.  Don’t just take it from us…

ICE MAKES THE DRINK

If you think ice is insignificant, then you haven’t been paying attention to your booze, experts say.
Building blocks for the perfect cocktail

The cold and hard truth is this: the most important component in your cocktail creations might very well be the thing you pay the least attention to — ice.

Casual drinkers probably don’t give a second thought to the frozen chunks bobbing in their highballs, but mixologists throughout the country are learning that the most important building block of a perfect cocktail is perfect ice.

When the partners of Houston’s Anvil were planning what has become the city’s premiere destination for top-shelf hooch, they invested about $15,000 in a top-quality ice machine (Kold-DraftQ, considered the Cadillac of ice makers by the country’s elite bartenders).

“It’s colder and harder and allows you to mix better,” said Kevin Floyd, one of Anvil’s owners. “It’s out-and-out better ice.”

The rocky road to better ice has been a long time coming, despite the fact that in-the-know cocktailians have preached the good-ice gospel for years. Now, at least in serious bars, they’re chipping away at quality ice.

“It’s a trend in the geeky bars, without a doubt. But it says a lot about where the profession is going,” said master mixologist Dale DeGroff, considered by many the father of modern bartending. “There’s a trend for different types of ice for different beverages.”

Serious cocktail bars now employ varieties of ice to match the glass or the alcohol or to aid in the proper construction of the drink. There’s chipped ice, cracked ice, shaved ice, ice balls and ice sticks. The Velvet Hour, a bar in Chicago, offers eight types of ice. Japanese whisky giant Suntory is advocating the use of an “ice ball” — a solid sphere of ice, 2 inches in diameter — to enjoy its Yamazaki Single Malt.

The ice ball can be a challenge to make, and many of the mixologists advocating it, order them already made from Ice Caters, a company that has not only perfected the clarity and purity of ice, but offers overnight shipping anywhere in the US and Canada.   

And then, of course, there’s the classic cube. In the case of Kold-Draft, it is a clear, cloudless 1¼ inch cube that is harder than other commercial ice, melts slower and so pure it will not distort the taste of liquor. In short, it is a flawless cube.

DeGroff said it’s the only ice he uses. As a career bartender he’s had it with the cheapie ice disks, hollow barrels and tiny cookie-cutter cubes that melt quickly and seem to be designed to fill the glass in order to make the drink look fuller.

Cheap ice, he said, “was the friend of the [bar] owner and enemy of the guest.”

Today, however, as cocktails have evolved as bespoke creations, quality ice plays a key role in bartending. “Ice serves so many purposes in a cocktail. In many ways, it is the most important ingredient in a cocktail,” said cocktail consultant Jonathan Pogash of TheCocktailGuru.com. “With the resurgence of the classic cocktail you have a throwback to the 19th century when they’d chip off a block of ice from frozen ponds.”

Thankfully we don’t have to turn to frozen ponds for good ice anymore. A good bar with a Kold-Draft machine will suffice. Bartenders like Anvil’s Floyd love their flawless cubes so much, they start talking about things such as the “velocity” of the ice in the shaker when they’re making a drink. “I even like the sound of good ice in a shaker,” he said, “It makes a different sound.”

Ah, the sound of two cubes clinking. If you think ice is insignificant, then you haven’t been paying attention to your booze, experts say. Ice makes all the difference in the flavor of the drink, said Danielle Eddy, spokeswoman for the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade association representing American spirits makers.

“A friend said, ‘Sex in a relationship means nothing unless it’s bad — then it’s everything.’ How does that relate to ice? If it’s good, it means nothing. But when it’s bad it can totally kill a drink,” Eddy said. “You would never know ice means anything until it sours the drink.”

Resolution for the new year: Better sex. If not that, then at least better ice.

Ice Caters makes it

SOURCE: chron.com

Michael Shoer brought twenty-five years of Media and Marketing experience to the table when he first came up with the idea of manufacturing ice products for overnight shipping. His experience at that point ranged from being a radio reporter to a television producer, executive producer and the creator of nationally syndicated television and interactive services for media clients. It had nothing to do with ice.

Then what began as an idea for a party, evolved into the first premium branded line of ice products supported by a unique marketing, manufacturing & distribution business model. The Ice Caters brand is widely recognized within the hospitality, food and beverage sectors, and special events sectors. 

Ice Caters developed a national manufacturing and distribution model for a wide ranging line of “ice in a box” products, and successfully serviced many of the largest customers in the industries of food and beverage, hospitality and cruise lines with these designs, before divesting from all lines of the business except the marketing of the perfect cocktail ice ball.

In 2010, Today, Ice Caters continues  as the marketing force behind the evolution of the Ice Ball while the founder also explores new horizons in the areas of social media marketing, communications and entrepreneurship, provide marketing communications and creative services for business clients.   Read More.

Meantime the ice ball rolls on and continues to ride the wave of the return of the classic cocktail, or perhaps with an ice ball, or perhaps we should say,  the classier cool cocktail!